I won a first-class prize for maths contest of my hometown when I was at Grade 8 in a junior high school, and it was the only first-class prize in the whole grade in that year.
The prize involved no money or papered certificate, all I got is an oral announcement and a brief praise in class. But till now after nearly fifteen years, I still have the vivid memory of blessed joy running through my whole body, and disturbing smile even during my sleep.You want to know why? I will tell me later.
The contest was not an easy one and I was not the smartest maths guy. But I did attend the after-school maths training camp targeting that contest. The long hours of mathematical problem solving was boring at its best, be we boys always could find some joy in the joyless class.We would play tricks on attentive good girls and exchanged personal collection of cartoon cards or strips. Anyway, wo did learn some maths in it. But the key is I had a thing for a lovely short-haired girl whom I will call her YaYa.
It’s two-month special training and I never said a word to her or have any sort of eye contact with her, but I just felt indescribable happiness when seeing she quietly sit there and listen to the boring maths teacher. We go to the downtown by coach and sit the exam of two hours. I don’t have any feelings about my performance, positive or negative.But when the results was announce. Along with her, I did do a good job.
Let’s go back to the real reward I got from the winning. All the prize-winners, including me and YaYa, were photographed,and the pictures were displayed in a show window right by the school gate. The killer fact is, her picture is the second one, just beside me. So for a term, I stayed that close to my goddess. Every time I passed the show window. I laugh like an idiot, leaving my buddies at a complete loss.
